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Saturday, November 30, 2013

Return of the Paisley Underground: Interview with Susanna Hoffs and Danny Benair

My story originally appeared in the OC Register.

Welk Music Group

For many young local musicians in the early ’80s, the era was a void
that left them feeling adrift.

Punk was on the wane. Synth-leaning
European new wave groups and arena rockers were making waves courtesy of
then-nascent MTV. Less-than-groundbreaking acts like Christopher Cross,
Olivia Newton-John and Air Supply dominated the Billboard charts.

Feeling more connected to sounds popularized a decade and a half
earlier, several bohemian bands cropped up around Los Angeles.

The
Bangles, the Three O’Clock, the Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade shared
concert stages – as they will next week for the first time in 30 years –
and spent a great deal of time together, with influential KROQ DJ
Rodney Bingenheimer and much of the local press as their champions.

“It was such an incredible moment for us all to come up at the same
time on the L.A. scene,” recalled Bangles singer/guitarist Susanna Hoffs
(pictured above) during a phone interview last week. Groups like those
“were dragging the ’60s into the ’80s with the music we were writing. It
was a true scene going on.”Danny Benair, drummer for the Three O’Clock, agreed
during a separate chat. “There was certainly a large friendship among
that group of people ... and the various bands played together. It
wasn’t that hard to imagine,” he added, noting that their guitarist
Louis Guiterrez once dated Hoffs.Rain Parade’s David Roback lived a couple blocks away from her, and
he and brother Steven played in an early band with Hoffs. Dream
Syndicate leader Steve Wynn attended UCLA and worked at nearby Rhino
Records, where he met all these musicians and more.As these groups’ local popularity grew, Three O’Clock singer/bassist
Michael Quercio did an interview with LA Weekly and unwittingly dubbed
the burgeoning music scene “Paisley Underground.” The moniker stuck.“Orange County was always great for us,” Benair remembers. “We had a
great following down there. It seemed like a whole (different) world. We
played the Cuckoo’s Nest a lot, the Golden Bear … opened for R.E.M. and
then Echo & the Bunnymen at Irvine Meadows.”

courtesy: The Three O'Clock

The Bangles and the Three O’Clock (pictured left) also had a high-profile benefactor in common as their careers blossomed.Prince lent songs to both, with the former’s “Manic Monday” reaching
No. 2 in 1986. He also signed the Three O’Clock to Paisley Park Records
via Warner Bros., though he and the band had virtually no contact.

(That
imprint issued 1988’s swan song Vermillion, while first Frontier and
then IRS Records released the group’s more lauded and lasting works,
1983’s Sixteen Tambourines and 1985’s Arrive Without Travelling.)When Prince put out Around the World in a Day in 1985, the follow-up to Purple Rain,
its frequent psychedelic tinges were considered a subtle nod to the
Paisley Underground.

Around that same time, the Bangles achieved
multiplatinum success with 1986’s Different Light (Gutierrez
co-wrote music for that album’s Top 20 single “Walking Down Your
Street”), while the other bands also signed to major labels and attained
varying levels of cult status before breaking up by the dawn of the
’90s.Benair cites the Stone Roses, Primal Scream and Dean Wareham's Luna
as bands likely inspired by the Paisley Underground movement. Next Thursday, all four primary Paisley bands will perform together
for the first time in three decades at the Fillmore in San Francisco,
followed by a replay Friday night at Hollywood’s Fonda Theatre. Proceeds
will benefit Education Through Music, an L.A. nonprofit that helps restore music to the core curriculum of disadvantaged schools.Additionally, the Three O’Clock will appear at the Constellation Room
in Santa Ana on Tuesday for an intimate warm-up, their first show in
O.C. since reuniting for Coachella in April.

"Going back to Orange
County will be fun because we haven’t done it in so long," says their
drummer.The charity reunion idea came about in February. Benair and Quercio
had played another charity event attended by the Bangles’ Peterson
sisters, Debbi and Vicki, and they talked about doing something together
in the future.

The Three O’Clock then received plenty of newfound media
attention from playing Coachella and TV’s “Conan,” and the idea gained
more traction over the summer when Wynn said he’d bring along his
reconstituted Dream Syndicate.

Most of the Paisley musicians have kept in touch over the years.
“Louis works closely with ETM-LA,” Benair says. “It’s about music and
we’re all based in Los Angeles, so it seemed logical.”

Worth noting: Each of the Paisley acts currently contains at least
three ’80s-era members (David Roback is too busy with Mazzy Star to join
Rain Parade). Benair and Hoffs also promise surprises and
collaborations during these gigs.

The Bangles’ frontwoman says the group has been rehearsing its
earliest music for the gigs, though a few weeks ago, she tweeted to find
out if anyone knew chords to the band’s 1982 self-titled debut EP.

“I don’t even have it; I have to find it on YouTube clips,” she
admits, hinting that a reissue is in the works.

“Vicki, Debbi and I used
to work in the garage of my parents’ house back in 1981-82. Now we’re
rehearsing at my house. That’s been really wonderful. We’re back to
basics, just the three of us … it’s taken a little bit of homework to
figure it all out again. All the harmonies are coming back. We’ve been
working on it and it’s been really refreshing.”

Unlike the other Paisley acts that reunited in the past two years,
the Bangles have been active again since 2000 and two years ago issued their newest studio album, Sweetheart of the Sun.

Meanwhile, Hoffs has been very busy with solo projects.

Someday, the follow up to her ’96 self-titled effort, came out last year. Produced by Mitchell Froom (a music contributor to Different Light),
it’s a charming, Bacharachesque ode to baroque folk-pop of the ’60s.

Described as a “true labor of love,” Hoffs says the album’s “unexpected
writing relationship” with musician Andrew Brassell added a youthful
energy.“He’s such a good guitar player and comes from the Nashville club
scene. He’s got an amazing knowledge of ’60s music, which blew my mind
because when we first met, he was 25. That immediately put us on the
same page.”

Then there’s Hoffs’ latest enjoyable installment of decade-divided covers collections with Matthew Sweet (unofficially known as Sid 'n' Susie). Under the Covers, Vol. 3
(from Shout! Factory) focuses on the ’80s, with the pair tackling
selections by Echo & the Bunnymen, the Smiths, Pretenders, the
English Beat, R.E.M. and others with their usual superb vocal harmony
blend.

“Matthew and I are like two kids in a candy store when we’re picking
songs,” she says. “We really have to limit ourselves; otherwise, our
list grows so long. … This one was really interesting because we did a
lot remotely by Skype-ing tracks to each other. It really felt like
unwrapping a present.

Hoffs singing lead on tunes by Roxy Music, Lindsey Buckingham and
Dave Edmunds was Sweet’s idea. “That happens all the time. We make our
lists and we never know what we’re doing. It becomes something we figure
out at the last minute.”

Sweet, the power pop singer/guitarist who also co-produced Sweetheart, meticulously re-creates guitar effects for these Under the Covers sets, most noticeably on the latest disc during Buckingham’s “Trouble.”

“We want to honor the spirit of the songs and capture that as best we
can,” Hoffs explains. “We try to really study them, but we are also
quite spontaneous and loose in how we actually record them. We try not
to over-worry about it. As long as the emotion is there, then we feel
we’ve done our job.”

When she performs at Stagecoach next April, her solo material should
fare well in stripped-down form. The booking is something of a
left-field choice, but Hoffs actually “grew up listening to Tammy
Wynette and Patsy Cline records, studying their vocal techniques and
stylings.” She also tackled the Stone Poneys, Little Feat, Gram Parsons
and the Allman Brothers on previous regular and deluxe Covers editions.

“I was so flattered and surprised that (festival organizer
Goldenvoice) reached out to me. Honestly, it’s a dream come true … I
can’t even express how excited I am.”

In other Three O’Clock news, longtime enthusiasts rejoiced with this year’s release of The Hidden World Revealed
through Omnivore Recordings.

A playful "With a Cantalope Girlfriend," the surf rock-leaning "Lucifer Sam," quirky "When Lightning Starts," their best known song "Jet Fighter" (in two versions) and a tasty cover of The Byrds "Feel a Whole Lot Better" are among the selections.

Track-by-track
commentary and anecdotes from the principal musicians are contained in the liner notes. “I felt that it was a nice way for fans to see how the songs developed,” he shares.

The drummer – who has worked in music publishing for years – says he
spent a decade, off and on, assembling everything. Grammy-nominated
mastering ace Bill Inglot “unearthed some tapes in better condition than
what we had. We’re doing a (limited edition) vinyl and cassette version
through (Fullerton’s) Burger Records that’s slightly different called Aquarius Andromeda. It cuts off more of the released tracks and has a few more unreleased ones. Bill did that as well.

“It’s a vinyl companion to the CD. A lot of people came to us and
said: ‘Why isn’t this on vinyl?’ Now they’ll be able to get it, slightly
tweaked.”Aquarius Andromeda will be available at the Santa Ana gig and in general release on Jan. 14.